(This isnt my point of view, but I want to listen, given Dent's track record)

DEMOGRAPHICS (per Harry Dent, on www.FinancialSense.com interview)

. .

Predicting is easier these days, because of the availability of data showing how people spend money, at what ages. One of the greatest insights: relationship between the age of baby-boomers, age 46-50 years, and their spending. Peak in borrowing is also related. This will not peak until towards the end of the decade
around 2009. So the best years may be right ahead of us.

People do predictable things as they age. By the early twenties, they become highly productive. By the age of 50, they start spending less, as they downsize. If you understand how people spend money, and observe the long 80 year cycles in the introduction of new technology. Only since the earlt 1980s have we been able to measure these factors accurately.

We have seen the PC revolution and Internet move mainstream. So the boom of 1992-2000 was predictable. The big correction from 2000/2002 was only a correction, and will be followed by another boom into 2009 or so.

- -
1929-1933: 14 year correction, another will come in 2009 or so.
2004-2009: Dow 35,000-40,000 peak?

Property-: Baby Boomers have already bought their largest homes,
.........: so Property prices will slow. Moving OUT of prime residential market

Invest in stocks, be cautious toward Real estate

- -
For over 15 years, New York Times bestselling author Harry S. Dent, Jr. has been uncannily accurate in predicting the financial future. In his three previous works, Dent predicted the financial recession of the early 90s, the economic expansion of the mid-90s, and the financial free-for-all of 1998-2000.

The Next Great Bubble Boom offers a comprehensive forecast for the next two decades, showing new models for predicting the future behavior of the economy, inflation, large and small cap stocks, bonds, key sectors, and more. Dent gives advice on everything from investment strategies to real estate cycles, and shows not only how bright our future will be, but how best to profit from it.

In The Next Bubble Boom, Dent reveals how the economic growth of the late 1990s was a prelude to the great boom around the corner and how all of us can reap its benefits.

= = =
Financial Sense Website : H.Dent interview (windows media) : Dent's Roaring 2000's Report

H.Dent Connections: Harry Dent's Website : DEMO Thread on Advfn
Other Connections : J.Goulding's Summaries

80 YEAR Cycles... Google Search

1/
Early Warning about giant solar flares. Since the Sun is entering the high activity period of its 80-year cycle, such a flare may ruin the majority of satellites control systems.
@: http://www.informnauka.ru/eng/2001/2001-12-28-0405_e.htm

2/ Gleissberg Cycle= 80 Years= 7 x 11year Sunspot Cycles
03- 9 1775-1856 80.5 11.5 6.79 +0.30 107 * : : x * diff < 2yrs
10-16 1856-1933 77.8 11.1 6.56 -0.19 93 * :x: * near mean
------ 1933+77yr= 2010-2013

A well-known cycle of about 80 years is called the Gleissberg cycle. Most often it is considered as a 78-year cycle. The limits for it are 72 and 83 years according to the Schove rules, or 6.07 and 7 Jovian years. If we make to the Elatina value (assuming it to be 78.5 (not 79) years) the same transformation (11.862/12 * x) as to the other two values, we get 77.6 years or 6.54 Jovian years. It is within the Schove 'normal' limits of 77-79 years.
@: http://www.kolumbus.fi/tilmari/gleissb.htm


3/
Danish paleoclimatologist Willy Dansgaard and his colleagues had managed to obtain paleotemperature results from samples of this core and had concluded that much of the variation in climate could be accounted for by a combination of 80-year and 180-year cycles, which they thought reflected periodic fluctuations in the Sun’s energy output. When I merged Dansgaard’s pattern with that of the warming expected from the steady increase in man-made greenhouse gases, I obtained a composite that matched the major features of the actual global thermometric record—namely, a warming phase extending from 1860 to the time of World War II and followed by a thirty-year pause. I predicted that when, in the near future, Dansgaard’s natural cycle turned from a cooling into a warming phase, the natural and the man-made factors would join forces and produce a prominent renewal of the warming trend. My warning was published in the journal Science in 1975. In 1976 the thirty-year plateau came to an end, and the warming that then began has continued right up to the present.
@: http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/1001/1001_feature.html

according to Dent:
Property Opportunity:

McMansions are done. This is the time of Vacation & retirement homes

Dr B
US equities are already on high PEs.
For Dent's predictions to come true surely the PEs would be sky-high, akin to tech boom era. How does he reckon that is sustainable?

Interesting....

He's quite convincing.

He argues that broadband and mobile internet is going to drive the next tech boom saying that saturation is only at 60% and will rise to 90%. I'm slightly sceptical this will cause a new tech boom, partly because 3G phones have not really been a success wireless broadband is more of a convenience than a revolution. How many people can watch video on their phones now - quite a few - this hasn't really been an exciting revolution - not in the way the internet was. You can still use google, buy stuff on amazon and ebay with a 56k modem and a phone line. Maybe the killer app has just not been invented yet, and that will happen soon, maybe he's right about the boom but wrong about broadband, who knows.

He also doesn't acknolwledge how real estate busts feed into the rest of the economy- perhaps this is less noticable in the US, and the fall in the dollar doesn't get a mention.

Is it possible that the stock market will boom once the housing bubble bursts because speculative money from property gets diverted into the markets?

Y.:
"surely the PEs would be sky-high, akin to tech boom era"

I believe he sees to jump in earnings, as U.S. based companies begin
to spend heavily in the second half of 2005.

He is NOT expecting a sharp drop in the US$, but if that happened,
it may help spur spending on the part of US companies

This is very interesting Dr Bubb I have observed this in the past few years, and in some ways can relate to it myself.
Before retiring from my business I had a customer data base of over a thousand, being all ages and different professions, who I would visit twice annually. Those between 40 and 50 were great spenders buying all the new gizmos, latest furniture, exchanging cars, and expensive holidays. When you looked at the over 50 to 60`s these articles were not readily exchanged, and the holidays were to the Med and no longer long haul. The interesting ones are the 60`s to 62 who seem more concerned what will happen when they retire, and are really cutting back even if they have a reasonable pension to come. Everything is now polished and not replaced, but strangely a mid range new car seems to be the order of the day, hoping it will last them a long time after retirement. Many of them would talk to me about their intentions if money became short and they all agreed that MEWing would be considered, but preferred the non repayment mortgage as the best choice.

REMEMBER: Baby Boomers (1947-56) are now about 50 years old:
(from Dent's website):

To understand these long-term trends in real estate, I have identified six different property categories. Over the life span of a generation, spending on each category accelerates to peak at predictable age intervals.

+ Spending on commercial real estate including offices and factories, rises to a peak as the new generation enters the workforce en masse, between the ages of 19 to 22.
+ The demand for rental apartments and retail space including shopping centers, begins to accelerate from 19 and peaks around age 26.
+ Starter home purchases begins accelerating at around age 26 and reaches a peak around age 33.
+ Spending on trade-up homes accelerates from age 35 and reaches a peak by around age 44.
+ Sales of vacation property begins to accelerate from age 46 and peaks around age 52 to 55.
+ Investment in retirement property begins to accelerate from the late 50s and peaks in the mid-60s.
The Real Estate life cycle chart below encapsulates these predictable waves of real estate spending for the baby boom generation.



"The hottest real estate investment in this decade is vacation and resort property."
This chart shows that four kinds of property are hot now and will be for the next few years.

Most baby boomers will be seeking trade-up homes as they move into their mid-forties. We've seen the market for these homes rising rapidly since about 1994. The demand will peak between 2001 and 2005 and is likely sustain until 2008.

The demand for vacation property is accelerating even more rapidly than trade-up homes and will peak later, around 2012 to 2015.

Whatever his record, and whatever he is saying, I don't believe the Dow has any upside from here. My bet is Dow 5,000 in 2009.

It's a rather obvious tip when one thinks about it though; investing in retirement homes has got to be a winner!

The sprint in House Prices that we have seen in the UK since 1992...



...is likely related to the demographics.

Now that "Household formations" and "Trading up", are slowing down,
the house price boom will slow too. And the huge debt disruption will
simply exaggerate the downtrend. But the real SOFT PATCH will be
2009-2020 if Dent is right.

So where is the demographic justification for the myth that:
"HOUSE PRICES WILL RISE IN THE LONG TERM" ?

There isn't one, and it is a bull's dream- not reality.

B.P.
Your:
"I don't believe the Dow has any upside from here. My bet is Dow 5,000 in 2009."

I agree that the dow may be weak in 2005-6, as the important Four Year
cycle heads down. But something which may push up US$ stock prices
would be a much weaker US currency. Just look what happened in Weimar
Germany.

See : Weimar charts

...and: the interview is well-worth a listen, & his website a visit

Read an interesting article this weekend in one of the weekend papers. Interview with well-known fund manager Anthony Bolton. Bolton manages one of Fidelity's funds, and describes himself as a classic contrarian investor. Basically he was quite bullish about stocks for the next few years, saying it was the place to be in 2005.

Van,
Do some work on the 4year cycle. It is very powerful

- -

UK DEMOgraphics... source

Here's a recent Press comment:
" For a start, the demographics are not straightforward. The number of baby boomers looking to cash in their big gains in the property market is rising at a time when the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds, the classic first-time buyer age group, is declining. Relatively, the proportion of sellers is rising as the number of buyers is declining. Many of the sellers may decide to wait for the market to pick up again, but there will always be a number of people who decide to sell or who have no option to do otherwise."

As a long-time anonymous lurker I'm a first-time poster with some trepidation but here goes:

I have plotted the birth data for E&W from the ONS website, to me the important demographic feature seems to be 'the bulge' from 1955 (667,811) to 1977 (569,259) with a peak at 1964 (875,972). The classic 'post-war' baby boom is from 1942 (651,503) peaking at 1947 (881,026) before declining sharply to the 1955 low. I suspect the 50's/60's boom will have more underlying effect long-term but will obviously be swamped by any irrational bubble.

Hopefully births.pdf is below:

Click to view attachment

Superb first post Patrat. So there were actually TWO baby-booms, one in '47 and one in '64?

You've already had this effect in full (stock market rise summer/autumn 2004). The money came from the stock market originally in 2000. Any more money from the housing market will probably go into paying off the debts that we have amassed.

To me it seems so, although I only plotted births from 300 to 900 (1000s) so that will some effect of magnifying the trend.

The peak age for the post-war baby boom is 57 & for the 50's/60's boom is 40 (me unfortunately). I do not have the figures for the USA births but I do wonder how different they are. However I do think the E&W figures are worth considering when reading the thought provoking posts of DrBubb in this thread.

http://www.prb.org/pdf/USFertilityTrends1.pdf


The US data does not seem to show quite the spike that I would have expected. Anyone with more info on American fertility trends 1900-2000?

Sure was zzg113, 1947 when all the men returned from the war and made up for lost time. and 1964 the swinging sixties when the so called sexual freedom was born.

Apples & oranges here I think, I posted the birth numbers for E&W, fertility rates are different - births per 1000 women of childbearing years (I think).

If this fund is any example its not much of a track record.

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchar...&freq=2&time=12

He doesnt adjust for inflation. The dow could be anything depending on what the dollar value is. His charts are log scale which is invalid for trendlines drawn. Only inflation adjusted charts are meaningful in the long term. His chart from 82 only covers a disinflationary period.

What on earth...?? The BB generation is anybody who is born between 45 and 65, not two spikes at all.

This is why this generation are such a good bet if you can market a product to catch the 45'ers. Get it right and you have 20 years of custom.

This would explain why we are seeing retirement villages being built all over the place. These people are not quite ready for retirement homes yet, a lot of which have been closing down in recent years due to a lack of infirm people.

BF, if you had even bothered to look at Patrat's PDF AT ALL, you would have seen that there are TWO SPIKES on his graph.





Wow, what a genius! You're the first person to see that coming!

err no, just stating the obvious that you obviously cannot see.

You have caused confusion by stating that "there were two baby booms". You should have said that there were two peaks within the baby boomer generation.

No I have not. A baby-boom is literally that; a "boom" in the number of babies being born. The chart shows two of these, hence there were 2 baby-booms.

BF, are you SomeMight from the Motley Fool?

NOTES FROM THE WEB...

Posted by Beth (CA-FL) on January 26, 2004 at 16:29:45:

My 2 cents here:

There are major demographic changes underway. Do your strategies account for that?

1) High paying jobs being replaced by low paying ones. The L.A. Times had a good artilce on this last week.

2) Less revenue put into the stock market because baby boomers will be retiring.

3) "Roaring 2000's Investor's" thesis on the changing demographics is very succinct and graphs show good correlations. Strategies that have worked in decades past... when boomers were in their productive years... may not apply in the evolving economy.

The book takes a macro and global view... that in our consumer based economy there is an 80 year cycle. It began with the Henry Ford generation, went onto the Bob Hope/WW2 generation, then the Baby boomers.

The next generation starts the new 80 year cycle. This shift will have a "depression" or severe, inevitable downturn/correction which he predicts will start after 2009 (when boomers start retiring).
It'll take a while for the next 80 yr cycle to get into boom times.

When most of the population is in its 20's there is inflation (for numerous reasons)... highest earning years average at age 47 and so good times (like the late 90's tech boom).... then deflation afterward during the retirement years. His graphs strongly correlate the bulk age of the population to when there were inflationary/recessionary times. He also looks at populations in other countries. J*a*p*an's population is older than the U.S. and so that's why their economy has stunk the past decade. He doesn't see their echo boomers coming into productive times until I think 2020.

I have and continue to reassess my strategies since I read this book.

Beth
@: http://www.realestatelink.net/wwwboard/messages/28210.html

Yes you did, you said it clear as day. And you are saying it again in this reply. There were not two baby-booms, there were two spikes in the baby-boomer generation.



DrBubb, fascinating as always. These things really are out of our control aren’t they?

My thoughts are, who or what will start the next 80 yr cycle, ourselves or will we have to rely on youngish immigrant workers coming to the UK and 'doing good' for themselves.

It will take a massive change is social norms for women in the UK to start having loads of kids from a young age again. And you fail to mention deflation. Surely this has got to happen in a big way so that the general cost of living spirals down to allow people to be less dependent on work and start to rediscover leisure. At present all I see is groups of lads and ladettes stuck in really boring jobs, working silly and unsociable shifts, wondering how on earth they are ever going to make something of themselves in a world of 'haves' and 'havenots'. The valve lets off steam in a big way every Friday and Saturday night in the form of binge drinking and poor behaviour in the towns and city centres up and down the country.

By having the credit and housing boom, we have robbed a generation of any hope of a future full of prosperity and good. Just replaced it with crappy jobs and what seems like a life of renting or paying a millstone mortgage payment and all the associated debts that are part of being twenty or thirtysomething. Maybe this is how life has to be in a low inflation and competitive world. I dunno.

Patrat,

Thanks for the link to the chart:

I suppose I should add it to the Header.

Interestingly, we do not see the Double Peak in the USA data


Did they ration Sex too in the 1950s here?

The UK's second peak came YEARS later than the US 2nd peak,
which was BEFORE 1960

How can they be part of the same generation when they were born two decades apart?

I dunno, I didn't give them the name did I...

http://www.tricky.org/x/genx.htm

A baby boom means an increase in population. Interesting that this is not followed 25 years later by another baby boom - i.e. the baby boom babies do not have as many children as their parents did.

Have to say I can't buy into these 80 year theories and ideas that there is some sort of unseen, inevitable force at work.

I'm 52. I think my father's generation had it on their toes. Lots of people 15 - 20 years ago took early retirement - can you imagine that now? Lots of people were asked by their firms to pack up at 60 or 62. Mostly on half decent pensions - many on fantastic earnings related indexed pensions.

I look a my peers and observe:

Many of them have accumulated considerable mortgage debt as they have moved up the property ladder over the last 25 years.

Many of them will be paying mortages up to and beyond retirement age. (Whereas my father's generation bought a 3 bed semi when they were 25 and paid the mortgage off when they were 50 and then had a lot of disposable income because they still had jobs).

Many of them were relying on endowment policies to pay off their mortgages and have had to re-mortgage to repayment mortgages and are now paying a lot more.

Many of them have seen their future pensions to some extent or another, disappear.

Many of them have been made redundant at least once in their careers.

So, a belt tightening is happening and I think it is a myth to assume 46 to 50 year olds have loads of disposable income. I think this concept is 20 years out of date. The people I know with lots of spending power are the generation above me - although of course it is stupid to generalise. Many pensioners in this country live in poverty.

Surely the most worrying demographic is the birth rate now. And how many people are putting off having families because of property prices?

The things is, biologically speaking, women can only put off having children for so long, before they become infertile, and the longer they leave it, the harder it will be to conceive and less likely that the baby will be completely healthy. We may well see an entire generation of women sterilised by high property prices. This has already happened in Italy (also combined with women's lib, etc).

ZZG,
"We may well see an entire generation of women sterilised by high property prices"

Tough words, but true.
YES. Birth rates can be driven by War and Economics.
That is one reason these cycles repeat. Birth rates slowed in the 1930s because
of the Depression. That is one reason that the economy was slow in the 1970s

So you think our parents' generation had it good do you. Martello? As your counterpart - I'm 51 - I can't believe you can think this for a split second.

My father was born in 1916 in the middle of a world war, in fact he was named after a battle that was raging at the time (Verdun). He grew up as the son of a miner during a depression, he joined the air force because there was no other work going and consequently fought every minute of another world war.

He then rejoiced in the creation of the welfare state and now that he's old enough to need it is watching it being dismantled piece by piece around his ears.

Try telling him he's part of a lucky generation. So he bought a house for about tuppence ha'penny on a ridiculously cheap mortgage because he worked for a bank after leaving the air force and he's got two pensions apart from his state one. And he took early retirement - at 59, I think.

Bloody good on him - I think that generation deserve everything they've got if they're relatively affluent, they lived through some of the worst times imaginable. Every one of us born after the war has had it softer than anyone deserves - and then we have the gall to moan about our lot. We should be hanging our heads in shame.

10% of everyones salary nows pays to keep the 10 Million or so war generation in tea and biscuits, not their fault really just the state didn't manage the pension fund over the last 40 years or so, I think that's about ample appreciation don't you.

Frankly no, but then I've never been the kind of person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

And the retired still pay income tax with no relief given on the pension contributions, ask Mrs C.
Charlie paid 3k NI surcharge in his last year working, and still pays income tax on his unearned income as every body else does. Retirement is not always a free ride for the retired. Most of my young working life was paying IT up to 33% basic and there was no LEL then.

I think you, to some extent, misunderstood me. I know my parents generation had it hard - in fact my father lived in a council house all his life - worked bloody hard all his life and we were definitely in the 'hard-up' category when I was a kid. Like yours, my father spent every minute of the second world war in a soldier's uniform. I still think he (and certainly his property owning peers) were, relatively speaking, 'luckier' than many of my peers. And, when I thinkof the next generation - I despair. They cannot afford to get married and have children - they both have to work long hours - kids have to be in childcare - they have to take on massive debts just to put a roof over their heads - they have no job security - they live in a globalized world where now, as much as any time in history, unskilled workers are treated like cattle. We used to have unions to try to get decent working conditions and job security - now what have we got - a flexible labour market. i.e. crappy jobs for crappy money for a huge percentage of the population.
Have you seen our city centres at 11 o'clock on a Friday night - its like a war zone. My eldest son who is almost 16 is regularly subjected to violent attacks - verbal and physical, day and night, in and around the affluent market town we live near.
I have had to have serious rows with him to get him to go to bed on several occasions when he has been in conversation with friends on MSN - who are threatening to commit suicide! At the tender of age of 15 he is an agony uncle! I believe that there is something weird and intensely depressing about the way our society has evolved. I can only see drink and drug abuse getting worse. You said our parents generation 'lived through some of the worst times imaginable'. Well, I think that is true for every generation. Every generation has some people in it living through the worst times imaginable - whether this is war or poverty or even, as it the case now, some sort of debilitating malaise to do with the pointlessness of working ever increasing hours in crappy jobs, driving huge distances to work in the insane traffic we have now etc. etc. just for what - a house?
I think the point I really want to make is that, over the last 20 or so years - since Thatcher decided we had to become more competitive - our society has become more selfish, more fragmented and there has been a huge movement of wealth from young people to old people - at least in the property owning section of society. You realise I am sure that when a young person miraculously affords to buy a flat with a 150k mortgage - and all the other people in a chain take on an extra 50k on their mortgages to move up - it is the person at the top of the chain who benefits - often an older person getting out of the market to take advantage of the equity in the house. All that extra mortgage debt moves up the chain to the person at the top's bank account.
The average age of a FTB is 34. As zzg113 pointed out above, we are in the process of having a generation of women sterilized by property prices. The days are gone where you could just 'put your name down at the council' and wait a couple of years for a low rent house to become available for the rest of your life.
I look at my Dad and picture him as a 15 year old lad in a rough part of London working as a 'boy' in a furniture shop and my Mum - who came to this country from Ireland when she was 16 and went into service - and picture them standing at the beginning of their adult lives and I contrast it with my son - 15 years old, enjoying whatever benefits a private education can bring and living in an affluent area. And I remember my Dad saying how no matter how rough the area was, it was always safe to walk the streets at night.
If someone said to me - when would you rather be born 1918 or 1988? - I think, on balance, I would go for 1918. I think our society today is - what's a good word - squalid. My Dad, on the other hand, would have preferred 1868 - he always wanted to be a cowboy. I realise I am rambling now. However, going back to my generation - I know a lot of people who are deeply depressed. I know many people, myself included, who are biding their time to move to another country. I know many people who have seen their future fall apart in the last few years as endowment and pension scandals mean they can see themselves having to work until they drop. And lots of people my age have no job security - and they know, if they lose their jobs because someone half their age will do their job for half the money they are on - they will never get another job at the same salary again. Its time to head off to be one of the grey brigade who work at B&Q for minimum wages. My Dad's generation used to get a job and stick with it for life. I remember when I was in my 20s - you'd meet some old boy who'd been in the same job for 35 years and think - 'you poor old bugger - what a bloody boring life you have had' - but I know lots of people now who would be very happy to have some job security. In the 60s we broke all the rules and changed society's social conventions. In the 80s society's employment conventions were overturned. I feel the result of these things is an aimless, shiftless, morally bankrupt society. A civilization in fact that like all others before it has moved into its period of terminal decline.

I think the only people who are in a good position today are the ever increasing army of public sector workers. They still have pensions and (pretty good) job security. They even threaten strikes when Culpability threatens (and it will only ever be a threat) a cull. Are you one of them?

When the Iron Lady won the 1979 election I battened down the hatches, and was laughed at by my friends. I could see how things were going to change and sadly I have been proved right as your post shows too well. I have always believed that anyone who is willing to work hard is entitled to be able to buy their own home at reasonable prices as I have done at 3 to 3.5 income. The attitude today is I want everything and s*d everyone else. The party is now over and the painful period starts. My house is my castle and not an investment. At least I have security and freedom to raise a little cash to give me comfort in retirement. S*d the state I will look after myself.

Martello, you have summed up in one short sentence EXACTLY how the property market is like a pyramid scheme: money from new entrants (FTBs) go all the way up the ladder (chain) to the (likely babyboomers) perched at the top.


THE HOUSING MARKET IS A PYRAMID SCHEME.


It transfers wealth from the young to the old.



This happened to my Dad. He lost his job earning an extremely good wage, and the only job that he could get at his age (60) was a minimum-wage job at B&Q. It was terrible to watch him work 50, sometimes 60 hour weeks for a pittance, just enough to buy himself food with nothing left at the end of the week.

Whilst I understand what you mean when you say the attitude today is 'I want everything and s*d everything else' - I am not sure this is true about younger people - I mean people about 30. I have made a point of 'interviewing' anyone I have met in the last few weeks (nieces, nephews, sons and daughters of friends) who is about that age and who is not married (or part of a couple) and who have not managed to climb aboard the property train. The thing I discovered is that instead of wanting everything they regarded the possibility of being able to buy a flat as something way beyond them - and they had got used to it. For example: I asked my niece (29, good degree, crappy salary) - 'do you see yourself living in a shared house forever' and she said 'dunno, my and my friends just take life as it comes - unless I meet a really rich bloke I can't see how it will ever change.' She is going to have to wait until my brother departs this lovely world to ever stand a chance of settling down. Given normal life expectancy, she is going to be in her mid 40s by then.
I asked her if she was saving for a deposit and she just laughed - 'you must be joking - any spare cash goes to paying off my credit cards and the money on them has been gradually accrued since uni days on essentials - not flash holidays and clothes etc.
I really don't know what to make of where we are heading now.

Its bloody heartbreaking to watch. On the one hand I keep getting blokes who look as though they should have retired years ago delivering my Tesco order - they work 11 hour days I think and have to do 50 to 60 drops a day - its bloody hard work for an old bloke - on the other hand you get young guys doing it and you think - okay 60 hours at £5 an hour - £300 a week. How does that work? How do they make ends meet? It just baffles me.

Good to know we have a flexible labour market and can compete globally though!

Well zzg113 I was made redundant at 37, applied for many jobs and told I was too old, and that was 1980, Thatchers first year. Learnt a new trade and set up my own business. Lucky that Mrs C had a job, and redundancy payment paid off recently taken out mortgage on a climb up the ladder. My cousin a Spitfire pilot flying photographic missions with no armaments, shot down twice, made redundant 1982 as a chartered accountant. They were fetching the young blood in, work them hard, they can take the stress. Ended up with the only job he could get at half his former salary in a back street accountants. I always wondered why Blair invited her to number 10 when he won the 97 election, is she pulling his strings.

Oh,really! I notice you chose 1918 so as to avoid the obvious horrors of The Great War,but you would have been 1 year old when the influenza pandemic of 1919 claimed more lives in Europe than were killed in the battles of World War I.Had you survived such childhood diseases as diphtheria,polio,smallpox and TB (Still no cures) you would celebrate your 21st birthday in time for WWII.Those lucky enough to survive physically unscathed ( but not always mentally) would return to a bankrupt UK with hunger, rationing,ricketts and prefab buildings ( Ok probably worth 200k in todays market)
Next,you'd live through the austerity of the 50's as the UK strove to pay off its war debts.(Still rationing,still TB)

I was born in 1962,and I think the worst thing I've had to live through was Jive Bunny.

1918 or 1988? No choice...

OK, that settles it then, 1962 was the best year to be born. (seriously! the baby-boomers are the generation that have had it the easiest in the history of mankind).

You reckon? Missed the Beatles,can't remember the 1966 World Cup...and still bloody Jive Bunny!!!

Still,compensation = HPC of 2005/6

No way, 1945 to 1950 was the best years, teenage into the 1960's, young enough to cope with the 1970's, enough behind you to cope with the early '80s, in a good position to ride out the 1989 crash and now? Downsized with a big wedge in the bank and retirement to look forward to.

Just as the UK goes into massive depression and the cost of living spirals down. Cash will be king and debt will be a dirty word.

The cost of living - putting a roof over your head - has to come down. The Government need more tax revenue from all of us workers. Make the housing market crash and the cost of servicing a mortgage/paying rent a third of what it is now, and they will be able to whack up taxes without it hurting anyone in the pocket. AFAICC, it is the only option available, I simply cannot see any other way of raising enough revenue to pay the pensions and health-care for the soon to be retiring baby-boomer generation.

If the Government cannot balance the books at the top of an economic cycle, what hope will it have as we slide down the other side of the peak?

Interesting times ahead and one thing is as clear as day, I wouldn't wanna be a recent FTB'er with a 125% LTV Northern Rock Together mortgage. Good old inflation just ain't there to bail everyone out this time around.